As the Greek economy is in crisis and the country is trying to attract money from any source to survive, prolongation of the sanctions against Russia would only worsen the situation, former Greek diplomat Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos told RT.

The US is asking Greece to support the extension of sanctions
against Russia. The request was made during a visit by the Greek
Defense Minister Panos Kammenos to Washington. Greece does not
seem very keen on it as these sanctions as they are causing the
Greek economy an estimated loss of €4 billion a year.

RT:The White House has previously admitted
to playing a role in the sanctions on Russia imposed by the EU.
Is Europe losing its sovereignty?

Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos: What is actually
happening now is that the Greek government will not accept the
extension of the embargo against Russia when it ends in July. We
are in the middle of an economic crisis that has been created by
the EU and we are trying to find money from all kinds of sources
to survive. That’s one aspect of this. The other aspect, as
Minister Kammenos said, is that we have our traditional relations
with Russia and these relations are very important to Greece and
to its people.

RT:How much friction is this going to cause
between Greece and the rest of the EU?

LC: It’s going to create problems but we must
not forget that when Greece came out in February and raised the
issue of not extending the embargo we had two other countries
that popped out – Austria and Slovenia – that supported us. So
it’s quite possible that other countries who have been hit by the
Russian embargo would also come out and this stupid story of the
embargo may finally stop. And we must also take into
consideration that it is the EU that created the issue in Ukraine
but not Russia, by not accepting to have the Association
Agreement because the Parliament of Ukraine did not accept the
demand to free Timoshenko. And then everything broke loose. So
this is something that the Greek government also believes in.

RT:How problematic would it be for Greece
if the anti-Russian sanctions were extended?

LC: It would hit us quite bad as the Minister
said. We get about four billion euro per year from Russia in our
agricultural exchanges and we have 1.5 million tourists coming to
Greece. That would hit us quite hard.

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